


you are coming down with me

by anacruses



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Brain Surgery, Gen, Gore, Hurt No Comfort, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6283321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anacruses/pseuds/anacruses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ford takes a deep breath and surveys the surgical instruments laid out before him--he knows in the technical sense what each one does, and will know in a much more <i>intimate</i> way before the night is over. The metal plate glints cold and dull on the table."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are coming down with me

**Author's Note:**

> stemming from a conversation in which my [friend](http://www.inkfacefahs.tumblr.com/) said basically, "hey, you know how ford has a metal plate in his head? imagine bill trying to fuck with him while he put it in", and written with their indispensable help during a series of all-nighters.  
> this is Gross, Fucked Up, _highly_ improbable and more than a little ridiculous, and was absolutely the most fun i've ever had writing anything.  
>  title from the mountain goats' no children.  
> (maybe i like being mean to ford a little too much.)

The cold sting of a needle and anesthetic pumping through his veins.

His hands stop shaking.

Ford takes a deep breath and surveys the surgical instruments laid out before him--he knows in the technical sense what each one does, and will know in a much more _intimate_ way before the night is over. The metal plate glints cold and dull on the table.

His mind is eerily blank, strangely calm, though not unwelcomely so. The main regret that rings distantly through his mind is that his lab isn’t as sterile as it could’ve been; the mundanity of the thought makes him feel a little like laughing, a little like crying. Fear and apprehension dance at the edge of his thoughts and he tries to will them away.

Shuts his eyes, steadies his breathing, lets his mind go--

_No!_

He jerks himself out of his unintentional meditative state. Bill can get in his mind when he’s _not_ meditating, yeah, but why make it easier on the little yellow bastard?

Fear pounds heavily in his chest, now; what the fuck is he _doing?_ Performing do-it-yourself brain surgery, alone, in a filthy lab? Bill Cipher or not, this is a goddamn _suicide mission_ \--

“Hey there, Fordsy! Whatcha doing?”

Ford jumps nearly out of his skin. Knowing that he would probably come didn’t make it any easier to bear. He turns and faces the dim yellow glow of Bill Cipher.

“Get _out_ of here, Bill,” he says, picking up a scalpel--the closest thing he has to a weapon. He keeps his hands steady even as his voice shakes.

“Get _out_?” Bill repeats, mimicking Ford’s tone. “Get out? Oh, come on, the party’s just getting started! And you don’t have the _right_ to kick me out of _anywhere_ , IQ--remember?” He laughs, harsh and horrible and echoing off the walls of the lab, as Ford realizes what he means.

He has no mental defense against Bill--he’s never _needed_ it before. So Bill Cipher slips into his mind like he has a hundred, a thousand times before, and Ford feels this time violated rather than honored--what he’d over time grown used to he now fucking _despises_ , and he tries to throw up the best mental shield he can.

Well.  
He can’t do anything about Bill in his head--he can _feel_ him, coiled around Ford’s thoughts like caustic tendrils of smoke--but as he doesn’t seem to be _doing_ anything, Ford tamps down the anger and disgust that he feels rising within him. Ignoring the unsettledness twisting in his gut, Ford squeezes the cold metal of the scalpel between his fingers until it hurts. He sits down in front of the mirrors he’d set up for a full view of himself as he worked. The lab is silent and cold and lonely, even as Bill Cipher’s hideous glow hums softly, presently in his head. He pulls his glasses off slowly and presses the blade gently to his shaved scalp where he had earlier marked for the incision. He has run through the procedure so many times in dress rehearsals of sort that Ford thinks he could probably do it without thinking. Bill is there, watching and waiting--Ford can occasionally see, from the corner of his eye, a dull yellow glint overtaking his own blown pupils.

The blade against his skin, pressure not pain, and he slices--

“Oops,” Bill says, and there’s a long, shallow cut across Ford’s temple. “Butterfingers!”

Ford had been jostling his foot on the edge of his chair, biting his lip in focus, squinting to compensate for his lack of glasses, even holding his breath--but his hands had been steady. His hands had been steady. He wipes the blood from his cheek and takes a deep breath. His face is pallid and bloodsmeared in the mirror and one yellow eye _winks_ at him.

Well.

He will carve Bill Cipher out of his skull if it’s the last thing he does.

He tries again.

This time, when his hand spasms, the blade knicks ju-u-u-u-st beside his jugular vein.

“Gee, Sixer, you’re really not good with that thing, are you?”

The grin stretching his own face is grotesque, and he almost smashes the mirror.

Deep breath.

Try again.

Ford pauses before pressing the scalpel to his skin this time, trying to ready himself for Bill. Deep breath. Push. _There_ , a bead of blood on his skin, right where he’d marked for the incision--and his hand jerks to the side, leaving a cut across his brow.

Bill’s laughter is ear-piercing, bouncing off the tiled walls and the inside of their skull as Ford wipes away the blood streaming down his face.

“Wasn’t me _that_ time, Poindexter! Looks like you don’t even _need_ me to sabotage you, you can do it all yourself!” He ruffles Ford’s hair, getting it sticky with blood. “What are you even trying to accomplish here? Kick me out? This is your dumbest idea yet. Face it, Sixer, you wouldn’t last a _day_ without me. You _need_ me. I mean, c’mon, you really wanna go back to being alone, the outsider, the freak? With me, you’re someone--well, maybe not _special,_  but you’re _someone_ , all right.” He grins again. “You don’t wanna do this,” and it feels like a threat.

“Bill, you betrayed me,” Ford says, his voice strained. He suppresses a cough, remembering with a pang how long it had taken them to get the hang of sharing vocal chords. His fist clenches and blood continues to drip onto his shirt, the table, the floor. “Not only that, but you’re _evil_. You want to destroy the world. And you’d have used me to do it.” He knows he sounds petulant, like a whining child, but he can’t help it.

“Aww, c’mon, kid, you gonna cry? Look, it’s nothing personal! All I did was find myself a little mutant that was slightly smarter than the rest of you hairless monkeys, and just got lucky enough that you happened to be _incredibly_ susceptible to my charm and good looks. Look, it’s not your fault, I’m a lovable guy!”

Ford clenches the scalpel in his fist. His anger is curled in his chest, around his lungs, around _Bill_ , and he is on the borderline of slitting his own throat in the hope that he could take Bill down with him.

“But, hey, maybe you don’t _like_ being a worthless freak. That’s okay! I can fix that!” And the scalpel is still in Ford’s fist, except now it’s Bill’s fist, and his other hand is laid out across the table, six fingers spread wide. Ford strains against it, but Bill’s grip on him is iron-tight. Bill taps the tip of the scalpel to each of his fingers in turn, finally settling on the last, smallest digit. “Maybe I’ll take this off, would you like that? Hey, you never liked it that much anyway. Then I’ll get out of your mind forever, and you can pretend you’re not just a _freak_ …”

Something snaps in Ford. Something small, something that’s been straining for a while to break free. He tears at the mental wall between Bill and himself, words on his tongue that he can’t fully articulate, and he feels _everything_. Their thoughts commingle and there is fire and hate and rage and pain until Ford can’t tell whose thoughts are whose and Bill is right there, right there, sayingthinkingsinging to him, sickly sweet, “ _See, we’re not that different after all, you gullible little six-fingered freak of nature_ \--”

“Get _OUT!”_ Ford yells, and Bill does.

He doesn’t know who’s more surprised by this turn of events.

Ford looks down and his stomach turns unpleasantly. The scalpel is sticking out of his thigh, quivering slightly; a river of scarlet drenches his pant leg. He doesn’t feel a thing as he pulls it out and thanks something for the anesthetic.

Bill, meanwhile, just blinks at him mutely like he doesn’t fully realize what’s happened.

Then he does. “How _dare_ you--”

Ford turns his back on Bill Cipher.

He’s never had the power to force Bill out of his mind--though he’s never had the inclination to try--and he knows that now that Bill’s expecting Ford to fight back, he probably won’t be able to again. Things just got a hell of a lot harder.

When Bill enters his mind again, there’s nothing coy about it--he _slams_ into Ford like a freight train, and only by dint of expecting it is Ford able to hang onto his own body and not be expelled. He feelshearsthinks Bill laughing at him, distracted long enough for Ford to force his body back in front of the mirror.

Then, his hands aren’t his own, and his body will no longer respond to him.

A little more hope shrivels and dies in Ford’s chest.

“Still trying this?” Bill asks, contorting Ford’s mouth into a sneer. “Well, all right--it might take two to tango, but I bet this meatsack will dance better when you’re evicted!”

The scalpel is raised to his throat, dancing along the line of his carotid artery, pressing just hard enough to draw blood. Bill’s sickly yellow eyes in Ford’s face are glinting with mirth, and Ford can’t move, can’t even look away as Bill presses harder against the delicate skin that covers his pulse. Bill curls his mind around Ford's, icy black tendrils creeping into the deepest parts of his being.

_I’m going to die_ , he thinks numbly, dumbly. _I’m about to be murdered by my own hands._

_“That’s right, kid,”_ Bill says, singsong in the curve of his skull. _“It’s what you get for messing with powers beyond your wildest reckoning!_ ”

It’s like a punch in the gut--the realization that Bill was _right_ , that he had gotten himself into this mess, that he deserved every second of this--and he’s wondering _how_. How had this happened to him, how had he ever trusted Bill, how had he ever trusted someone--some _thing_ \--so clearly full of venom, so clearly dripping with darkness and lies and chaos. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , and if he were still in control of his body his entire being would slump.

_How did you fuck things up_ this _badly, Stanford._

And yet--

And yet--

The scalpel is poised against the fragile skin of his throat, and Bill’s grin splits his face hideously, and yet--

When Ford looks in the mirror he can’t help but see his brother, battered, exhausted, bloodied and _broken_ , and it stirs something deep, deep, deep within him that he thinks--he _begs_ \--that Bill can’t reach. It’s something a lot like hope, a lot like love. A lot like courage. He can see the faintest, dimmest light, miles and miles above his head, and the only way out is down. Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.

Bill has his body, but he still has his voice, and as the scalpel breaks skin he chokes out the first thing he thinks of.

“Bill--Bill, please--please, Bill--”

“What’s that, Fordsy? Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of your own impending oblivion, you’re gonna have to speak up a bit!” But still, he pulls the blade from Ford’s throat.

“I--please--” His voice cracks and a sob escapes.

Ford meant to lay it on thick, but he didn’t mean to cry.

Well.

He’s had a hard couple of days.

“Bill, B-Bill, please, don’t do this, don’t--don’t do this to me, let me go! I’ll do--I’ll do _anything_ , I swear, _a-anything_ , just please…” He sounds downright _pathetic,_  a blubbering piteous mess, and he just hopes that Bill thinks so too.

“Hey, c’mon, kid, chin up! I’m not gonna kill you yet--you’re not _completely_ worthless to me. Not yet, anyhow!” Bill forces Ford to lock eyes with him in the mirror. “You just need to _learn your place._ ”

Ford swallows. Bill is losing bits of control, little by little, as his focus turns to Ford’s mind rather than his body. He twitches his fingers, taps them against the table to test his limits--one two three four five six, and the scalpel is dangling loosely in the fingers of his other hand.

He doesn’t know what he can get away with without Bill noticing. He doesn’t have a _clue_ what Bill might be capable of. He doesn’t know how long he can keep Bill distracted. For the first time in his life, Stanford Pines is facing something he has no damn idea how to either understand or quantify. He _doesn’t know_ , and it’s killing him.

His mind falters, and he thinks of Fiddleford. He thinks of Stan. He thinks of his family, of the entire town of Gravity Falls, of the millions upon billions of peaceful lives that will be destroyed if he is not strong enough to defeat Bill tonight. He can feel the plans in Bill’s mind; he can see the chaos, the destruction, the absolute madness that awaits on the other side of his--of _their_ \--portal.

He sees Gravity Falls in flames, and blood on his hands.

“So, what’ll it be, kid?”

Ford makes his decision.

“I’ll help you,” he says, his voice trembling. He feels Bill prodding into his mind--feels him searching for intention--and forces only memories forward. Memories of Bill, back when he still held his spot in Ford’s mind as Good and Wise and Worth Worshiping. Each memory feels like a sucker punch--he can see clearly now his own blind trust, his devotion, his desperate willingness to believe that he was something _special_. His own arrogance and his own hopeless need to be accepted, to be praised, to be _worth_ something. How easy it had been to manipulate him, in the end. Ford thinks about how much he trusted Bill, how much he wanted to please him and, ultimately, would have laid down his life and everything he was for him; beneath these thoughts of love and idolatry he hides his rage and pain and betrayal. “I’ll help you.”

“Yeah?” Bill pauses for a moment, as if he’s considering. The presence of his mind around Ford’s lessens, fizzes away into static, just a bit.

Ford slowly, slowly, slo-o-o-o-o-owly raises the scalpel to his skull.

He hopes that all his practice will pay off.

Careful, now.

Slowly.

Slowly.

“What makes you think _I_ need _your_ help, champ?” Bill is grinning at him again, but this time it’s gentler, less gruesome. He condescends, and Ford acquiesces. “I mean, we made it this far, and while it _would_ be nice having a live-in puppet, you’ve already built my portal. I really don’t see how keeping you around benefits me anymore! I mean, what can you possibly give me that I can’t just take for myself?”

It’s a taunt--and a challenge.

The hand that Ford was moving suddenly snaps back out of his control. The scalpel is pressed just beneath his right eyesocket. The pressure builds, and Ford can feel his skin breaking.

_Now or never, just do it, you damn_ coward--

“Me!” he chokes out. “Me, me, you can have me.”

“Oh, I think I’ve already _got_ you, Sixer.” Bill winks with the eye that isn’t about to be sliced out with a scalpel. “I _have_ you in every way possible.”

“My body--my mind-- _y-yours_ \--forever--” Ford gasps out as blood streams down his face. He can vaguely feel his pride tearing, but doesn’t care. “Perm-permanent possession, i-if that’s what you want.”

“Well.” Bill takes away the scalpel once more. A wave of relief washes through Ford. “Well, well, well. The two of us inseparably bonded, from now until the end of time, or whenever I get bored of you, huh? I gotta admit, that’s a pretty tempting offer!”

The thought of an eternity with Bill makes Ford want to retch. He fights it and, instead, presses the scalpel back to the now-clotting incision.

“You know what, Sixer, I’m impressed.”

Bill doesn’t notice when Ford cuts his own scalp open.

(He can feel the flap of skin falling against his ear and oh God don’t think about it don’t think about don’t _think about it_.)

“You fought back against me, which is impressive if _stupid_ in its own right, and then almost _immediately_ gave up and came crawling back!”

Nor does he notice when he switches the scalpel for the craniotome.

“That kind of flip-flopping takes courage, kid. I guess I could really use someone that willing to take a magnet to their moral compass.”

_I’ll show you flip-flopping, you one-eyed son-of-a-bitch._

The tip of the craniotome touches his exposed skull.

“And I guess having you around could prove... _useful_.”

He’d vomit if he weren’t so otherwise preoccupied.

“After all, at the end of the day, it’s nice to have a skin-puppet to come home to.”

“Bill, please….” Ford’s voice is low, desperate, throat catching on a sob. He locks eyes with Bill in the mirror. Last chance of a dying hope. “Let’s make a deal.”

Bill grins. “You, me, and the end of the world.”

Their shared free hand lights up with blue flame, and Ford turns on the drill.

 

* * *

 

Bill Cipher screams in an infinite number of frequencies, and Ford’s nostrils fill with the stench of burning bone.

 

* * *

 

It takes every fiber of his being to hang on, to not let himself go, and Ford feels like he’s being ripped apart.

Bill pushes at him, fights him, claws at his very essence, and Ford thinks of the past and hangs on tighter.

 

* * *

 

_\--HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE--_

 

* * *

 

Ford’s fingers follow muscle memory, and the feeling of groping around inside his own skull is maybe even worse than having Bill in there.

 

* * *

 

It’s _definitely_ worse.

 

* * *

 

_How am I not dead?_

 

* * *

 

The iron plate is so heavy, so _cold_.

Every nerve in his body screams at him to hurl it across the lab and get as far away from it as he can.

 

* * *

 

What is he _doing_ to himself?

 

* * *

 

Bill curses him in tongues his ears can’t even fully process, let alone understand, and when he finally, _finally_ disappears it’s with a peal of laughter and a promise burnt into Ford’s mind.

_“I’ll be back, Stanford. S e e y  o  u  r   e   a   l   s    o    o    n   .”_

 

* * *

 

A deafening noise is replaced by total silence, suddenly enough to give him whiplash.

 

* * *

 

He thinks he misses the noise.

 

* * *

 

He thinks he hates the noise.

 

* * *

 

He thinks he could never learn to love the silence the same way.

 

* * *

 

He stitches himself up numbly, head heavy and pounding, feeling like he’s sewing up a hole in his soul.

 

* * *

 

(As much as he won’t admit it, he is.)

 

* * *

 

Blood.

 

* * *

 

So much blood.

 

* * *

 

_HOW am I not dead?_

 

* * *

 

His head is so _heavy_.

 

* * *

 

_Bill Bill Bill Bill Bill where_ are _you Bill--_

 

* * *

 

Blood.

 

* * *

 

Blood.

 

* * *

 

Blood.

 

* * *

 

Sleep.

* * *

 

He doesn’t dream.

 

* * *

 

Sleep.

 

* * *

 

When he finally wakes up, he doesn’t know what day it is. He doesn’t know where he is. He’s only partially sure of _who_ he is.

Vision blurred without his glasses, but there’s blood everywhere, surgical equipment scattered across the lab. Blood, so much blood; some of it is smeared into deliberate sigils on the floor and walls surrounding the operating table.

That his head hurts would be the understatement of the millennium.

(It’s so _quiet_.)

He finds some serious painkillers on his desk and washes a handful of them down with an entire bottle of water.

He passes out on the floor.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up again, he knows.

Stanford Pines, head pounding, skin sticky with his own dried blood, picks up his journal. There’s blood spattered across the pages that he’d devoted to Bill Cipher.

Well.

It suits him.

He tosses the journal into the corner of the lab, not caring where it lands, and runs his hand gingerly over the bandage on his skull. He’d hastily sutured his head, his leg, his face, stopped the bleeding from various body parts as best he could, trying to keep himself from, first, dying, and second, requiring hospital attention.

_God_ , he just wants to sleep forever.

Instead, he gets up off the floor, winces, stretches, tries not to fuck up his shoddy medical handiwork already. He takes a few more pills--should probably check the dosage on these at some point, he thinks vaguely--and slowly, slowly climbs the stairs. His body moves numbly, distantly, as if he’s following stage directions, and everything hurts.

His house upstairs is quiet and heavy and still and _suffocating_. He steps out onto the porch, trying to breathe. It’s morning in Gravity Falls, the sunrise filtering golden-orange through the trees, the cool autumn air full of life and light and hope. It’s so beautiful he feels that he doesn’t deserve to look at it.

Ford crumples to his knees in the burning orange glow of a new day, and he thinks about writing to his brother.


End file.
